to understand a dialect you it need to
understand its history so how did
English and the Upper Peninsula emerge
and develop the way we recognize it
today as you per talk how is that idea
of sounding like a you / tied to being a
u / English in the Upper Peninsula is
relatively new compared to other
varieties of American English it wasn’t
until the mid 19th century that English
speakers relative excuse me visited the
area and settled here there are four
major factors that have affected the
development of English in the Upper
Peninsula the way it is geography the
area’s isolation historical events such
as immigration and settlement patterns
the people who moved here the people who
have lived here like the Anishinabe the
languages that came into contact over
time including varieties of American
English especially from the east coast
in the Midwest also Cornish English and
Irish English french-canadian or
Canadian French economics are also a
factor that affects the dialect mining
and tourism in particular and then our
language attitudes what we think of as
good and bad English or do we have those
values about what it means to sound like
au beurre I’m assuming that all of you
know what au / is but just in case you
don’t here’s a definition from the
merriam-webster Collegiate Dictionary it
got in the dictionary in 2014 after a
12-year solicitation by Steve parks who
is playing Scrabble with a friend in
2002 and nahban way Michigan and he
wanted to use the word yooper and if you
play Scrabble you know that Y is worth a
lot of points but his friends said no
that word is not in any dictionary so
Steve Park started soliciting
merriam-webster’s and it finally got in
in 2014 you can find it between your and
Yahoo now the emergence of the word
yooper is also relatively recent it
wasn’t until 1970s that we see it come
in
to print but keep in mind for a word to
become into print it has to first exist
in spoken language spoken language is
primary to written language you can see
here in 1975 we have the first written
evidence of it and maybe it was written
somewhere else before that but this was
the first one that we’ve been able to
find what’s interesting to me about this
timeline isn’t just the fact that it
shows when you per became existence
existed in written language but also the
language attitudes that get reflected
here and the attitudes about what it
means to be a you / not everybody has a
positive attitude about what it means to
be a you / and you can see this in 1982
sociologist Michael lukannon that you
might know here at Northern Michigan
University created a documentary about
the local culture and he wanted to call
it Yoopers but there was a lot of
resistance from the local community
especially older residents because there
are negative connotations associated
with the term yooper and the lifestyle
of a yooper so he changed the name of
the film to good man in the woods the
last two examples are also particularly
interesting to me because it shows that
somewhere in the 80s there was an
emergence of a connection between what
it means to be a yooper and what it
means to sound like a you / we didn’t
see this before and you saw so with
sayad – the UPA from Jack Bauer’s also
of Marquette’s bumper-sticker and then
in 1986 the band that you might know as
duper’s they originally called word that
called the loopers so we see here
dialect features getting connected with
not just the place but a certain way of
being what it means to be a you / so how
did the dialect emerge well I had
mentioned emigration and settlement
patterns the languages that people spoke
when they moved here and those contact
among those languages evidence in
contact is is in place names for example
Lake Superior even though those words
are English words it shows a French
Connection French has a noun for lake
and then adjectives follow the noun in
English we do the opposite we put
adjectives before the noun Presque Isle
here in Marquette that’s a borrowing
from French too you can also see it in
local place names that have
anishinaabemowin background so nahban
way that I had mentioned new Gani
immunising unison means by the Big
Island and there’s Grand Island out
there and Keweenaw which means portage
or passageway many of the place names
are actually translations into English
from anishinaabemowin for example
portage lake in Houghton County means
Keweenaw
because of portage or passageway this
sign cows it flats is a really good
example of finished contact with English
now the sign was created in the 1980s by
a local resident who lived down this
road and you can see in the background
to the official name of the sign over
the street excuse me and this street has
historical as well as sociolinguistic
relevance the name does in the
background you can kind of see Quincy
mine hoist down this street was at one
time a mining community company housing
from 1845 to 1945 that mine was in
operation and miners and families lived
down this road many of the families had
their own cow they kept it in a single
style cowshed or a little barn and
somebody would walk that cow to the
flats or the pasture during the day now
that’s the historical part the
linguistic part is this a really good
example like I said a finished contact
Finnish alphabet doesn’t use the letter
C it uses a letter K for any kind
English we have the K we have the CK and
there’s some other combinations when
finished speakers speak English is a
second language Finnish doesn’t have the
show the SH sound so they often
pronounce sue remember I told you that
this was a pasture land for cows okay
you got that first part right now what
about the flats part well flats was what
the pasture was called but finnish
doesn’t allow for two consonants or a
consonant cluster of foot and old to
begin the word
so many speakers would drop the foot and
just say lats so you get it
cash it flats and that’s the official
name of the street now so what is a
dialect
I’ll give you an analogy with a PI
language is like a PI any kind of Pi
generic PI dialects are like variations
on that Pi theme blueberry cherry even a
tart dialects vary because of the sounds
or the phonology the morphology or how
words are put together the lexicon or
vocabulary including syntax or what we
might think of as grammar all of those
features of language will vary to make a
dialect to dialect and what we will
identify as distinct dialects but
they’re enough alike that they are part
of that main language or that PI one
example
locally of course of phonological
variation is sana most people in the
Upper Peninsula will say sana but
believe it or not most of my other
Americans will say sana another local
example would be the word pasty you know
the handheld meat pie crusted thing with
sometimes rutabagas and some people will
say pasty ah and others might have the
awesome pasta pasty pasty other dialect
features that aren’t necessarily part of
the U P but other regions might be
greasy versus greasy or coupon versus
coupon these pronunciations are also a
really good example of language contact
they show that settlers mixed and
mingled and in fact in the U P at one
time late 1800s to early 1900s there
were more people here that spoke other
languages than that spoke English and in
fact the Calumet schools have records
that show in the early 1900’s they had
students from 40 different nationalities
you can imagine that they spoke at least
as half as many languages when those
people were learning English they
typically learned it from other people
who spoke English as a second language
so what happened here was we have an
accent
English that developed over time now in
addition to pronunciation
another example of dialect variation and
how long language contact affects that
is the effects on vocabulary or the
lexicon some of these you might be
familiar with for example use or choke
how many word shook today any of you
arch I see it took out there now some of
these words though are not what people
might think of as the dialect they fly
under the radar for example make wood
I’ve never seen a bumper sticker or a
t-shirt that says I make wood or I’ve
never seen a hat that says I like bakery
bakery is a particularly interesting
example because it’s one of those words
that’s part of the dialect yet people
don’t recognize it as iconic of the
dialect this is a sign from Covington
Music Festival and it says all bakery
fresh trim Lowery’s pasty shop they are
talking about the baked goods themselves
not the building another way that
dialects vary Eric is according to
semantics or meanings that words have
here’s bakery is a really good example
the building where baked goods are made
and the baked goods themselves bakery is
also a really good example of language
contact we find this use of bakery as
the baked goods and other places where
German settled Milwaukee for example in
other parts of Wisconsin now pink this
is a word that many Yoopers claim to be
their own and it’s only in the U P I
have evidence from the dictionary of
American regional English however that
it’s not I’m sorry to say it’s also
found in Pennsylvania and upstate New
York now what those three areas have in
common they’re mining regions the also
the other thing they have in common is
that Norwegians Danes
Swedes settled in those areas so we’re
not quite sure where the word came from
you can see that perhaps maybe it’s a
blend or coming together of pack and
spank but notice how those three
languages have a similar word bunka and
those languages instead of having what
we might
consider a strong B sound often use more
sound like a sound so that is a
plausible reason you can also see here
that the different definitions and
evidence from northern Northern Michigan
and that means the U P in addition to
phonology the sound system word meanings
and vocabulary or the lexicon there’s
also grammatical variation that makes a
dialect to dialect now oftentimes people
will see these or hear these probably
not see them most people don’t write
them you would hear them and people
recognize them as local ways of speaking
but often they think they’re
ungrammatical bad English
oh that’s improper but this is what
makes the dialect distinct and again
it’s based on language contact Finnish
doesn’t have prepositions or articles
and the majority of people who settled
in the northwestern part of the Upper
Peninsula spoke Finnish and when those
languages came into contact Finnish and
English in particular those rules for
Finnish transferred on to English people
still understand what you mean if you
say I go Shopko or I went post office we
don’t really need those prepositions and
articles there’s nothing wrong about it
it’s just different it’s not
ungrammatical it’s not bad English
as with any dialect the unique sounds
words and grammatical structures are
what make a dialect to dialect and these
are some of the things that make you pee
English you per talk as we’ve seen
history social interaction resulting in
language contact are the key ingredients
that make up dialect to dialect we’ve
also seen that language attitudes are a
part of that and our attitudes about
dialects and perceptions about dialect
speakers and I should say that we all
have a dialect no matter what even your
high school English teacher had a
dialect so whatever our attitudes and
perceptions are we have to remember that
dialects are our badge of identity they
are who we are it rep
where we’re from our families our
communities our values our genders our
ages and if we remember that we can also
remember that for some people what it
means to be a yooper means to be proud
tough and independent especially from a
place that’s rooted in hard labor and it
has a climate that sometimes really hard
to live in with snow at least six months
out of the year so what makes a dialect
to dialect we do as we shape our history
as we interact with each other as we
sposta memes on social media about
dialects or dialect speakers as we have
conversations with friends and commute
co-workers and family members my hope is
that by understanding the history of the
dialect and understanding the distinct
features that make it and that all those
features aren’t necessarily distinct to
the yupi we can come appreciate a
dialect you bertok and what it means
thank you [Applause]
understand its history so how did
English and the Upper Peninsula emerge
and develop the way we recognize it
today as you per talk how is that idea
of sounding like a you / tied to being a
u / English in the Upper Peninsula is
relatively new compared to other
varieties of American English it wasn’t
until the mid 19th century that English
speakers relative excuse me visited the
area and settled here there are four
major factors that have affected the
development of English in the Upper
Peninsula the way it is geography the
area’s isolation historical events such
as immigration and settlement patterns
the people who moved here the people who
have lived here like the Anishinabe the
languages that came into contact over
time including varieties of American
English especially from the east coast
in the Midwest also Cornish English and
Irish English french-canadian or
Canadian French economics are also a
factor that affects the dialect mining
and tourism in particular and then our
language attitudes what we think of as
good and bad English or do we have those
values about what it means to sound like
au beurre I’m assuming that all of you
know what au / is but just in case you
don’t here’s a definition from the
merriam-webster Collegiate Dictionary it
got in the dictionary in 2014 after a
12-year solicitation by Steve parks who
is playing Scrabble with a friend in
2002 and nahban way Michigan and he
wanted to use the word yooper and if you
play Scrabble you know that Y is worth a
lot of points but his friends said no
that word is not in any dictionary so
Steve Park started soliciting
merriam-webster’s and it finally got in
in 2014 you can find it between your and
Yahoo now the emergence of the word
yooper is also relatively recent it
wasn’t until 1970s that we see it come
in
to print but keep in mind for a word to
become into print it has to first exist
in spoken language spoken language is
primary to written language you can see
here in 1975 we have the first written
evidence of it and maybe it was written
somewhere else before that but this was
the first one that we’ve been able to
find what’s interesting to me about this
timeline isn’t just the fact that it
shows when you per became existence
existed in written language but also the
language attitudes that get reflected
here and the attitudes about what it
means to be a you / not everybody has a
positive attitude about what it means to
be a you / and you can see this in 1982
sociologist Michael lukannon that you
might know here at Northern Michigan
University created a documentary about
the local culture and he wanted to call
it Yoopers but there was a lot of
resistance from the local community
especially older residents because there
are negative connotations associated
with the term yooper and the lifestyle
of a yooper so he changed the name of
the film to good man in the woods the
last two examples are also particularly
interesting to me because it shows that
somewhere in the 80s there was an
emergence of a connection between what
it means to be a yooper and what it
means to sound like a you / we didn’t
see this before and you saw so with
sayad – the UPA from Jack Bauer’s also
of Marquette’s bumper-sticker and then
in 1986 the band that you might know as
duper’s they originally called word that
called the loopers so we see here
dialect features getting connected with
not just the place but a certain way of
being what it means to be a you / so how
did the dialect emerge well I had
mentioned emigration and settlement
patterns the languages that people spoke
when they moved here and those contact
among those languages evidence in
contact is is in place names for example
Lake Superior even though those words
are English words it shows a French
Connection French has a noun for lake
and then adjectives follow the noun in
English we do the opposite we put
adjectives before the noun Presque Isle
here in Marquette that’s a borrowing
from French too you can also see it in
local place names that have
anishinaabemowin background so nahban
way that I had mentioned new Gani
immunising unison means by the Big
Island and there’s Grand Island out
there and Keweenaw which means portage
or passageway many of the place names
are actually translations into English
from anishinaabemowin for example
portage lake in Houghton County means
Keweenaw
because of portage or passageway this
sign cows it flats is a really good
example of finished contact with English
now the sign was created in the 1980s by
a local resident who lived down this
road and you can see in the background
to the official name of the sign over
the street excuse me and this street has
historical as well as sociolinguistic
relevance the name does in the
background you can kind of see Quincy
mine hoist down this street was at one
time a mining community company housing
from 1845 to 1945 that mine was in
operation and miners and families lived
down this road many of the families had
their own cow they kept it in a single
style cowshed or a little barn and
somebody would walk that cow to the
flats or the pasture during the day now
that’s the historical part the
linguistic part is this a really good
example like I said a finished contact
Finnish alphabet doesn’t use the letter
C it uses a letter K for any kind
English we have the K we have the CK and
there’s some other combinations when
finished speakers speak English is a
second language Finnish doesn’t have the
show the SH sound so they often
pronounce sue remember I told you that
this was a pasture land for cows okay
you got that first part right now what
about the flats part well flats was what
the pasture was called but finnish
doesn’t allow for two consonants or a
consonant cluster of foot and old to
begin the word
so many speakers would drop the foot and
just say lats so you get it
cash it flats and that’s the official
name of the street now so what is a
dialect
I’ll give you an analogy with a PI
language is like a PI any kind of Pi
generic PI dialects are like variations
on that Pi theme blueberry cherry even a
tart dialects vary because of the sounds
or the phonology the morphology or how
words are put together the lexicon or
vocabulary including syntax or what we
might think of as grammar all of those
features of language will vary to make a
dialect to dialect and what we will
identify as distinct dialects but
they’re enough alike that they are part
of that main language or that PI one
example
locally of course of phonological
variation is sana most people in the
Upper Peninsula will say sana but
believe it or not most of my other
Americans will say sana another local
example would be the word pasty you know
the handheld meat pie crusted thing with
sometimes rutabagas and some people will
say pasty ah and others might have the
awesome pasta pasty pasty other dialect
features that aren’t necessarily part of
the U P but other regions might be
greasy versus greasy or coupon versus
coupon these pronunciations are also a
really good example of language contact
they show that settlers mixed and
mingled and in fact in the U P at one
time late 1800s to early 1900s there
were more people here that spoke other
languages than that spoke English and in
fact the Calumet schools have records
that show in the early 1900’s they had
students from 40 different nationalities
you can imagine that they spoke at least
as half as many languages when those
people were learning English they
typically learned it from other people
who spoke English as a second language
so what happened here was we have an
accent
English that developed over time now in
addition to pronunciation
another example of dialect variation and
how long language contact affects that
is the effects on vocabulary or the
lexicon some of these you might be
familiar with for example use or choke
how many word shook today any of you
arch I see it took out there now some of
these words though are not what people
might think of as the dialect they fly
under the radar for example make wood
I’ve never seen a bumper sticker or a
t-shirt that says I make wood or I’ve
never seen a hat that says I like bakery
bakery is a particularly interesting
example because it’s one of those words
that’s part of the dialect yet people
don’t recognize it as iconic of the
dialect this is a sign from Covington
Music Festival and it says all bakery
fresh trim Lowery’s pasty shop they are
talking about the baked goods themselves
not the building another way that
dialects vary Eric is according to
semantics or meanings that words have
here’s bakery is a really good example
the building where baked goods are made
and the baked goods themselves bakery is
also a really good example of language
contact we find this use of bakery as
the baked goods and other places where
German settled Milwaukee for example in
other parts of Wisconsin now pink this
is a word that many Yoopers claim to be
their own and it’s only in the U P I
have evidence from the dictionary of
American regional English however that
it’s not I’m sorry to say it’s also
found in Pennsylvania and upstate New
York now what those three areas have in
common they’re mining regions the also
the other thing they have in common is
that Norwegians Danes
Swedes settled in those areas so we’re
not quite sure where the word came from
you can see that perhaps maybe it’s a
blend or coming together of pack and
spank but notice how those three
languages have a similar word bunka and
those languages instead of having what
we might
consider a strong B sound often use more
sound like a sound so that is a
plausible reason you can also see here
that the different definitions and
evidence from northern Northern Michigan
and that means the U P in addition to
phonology the sound system word meanings
and vocabulary or the lexicon there’s
also grammatical variation that makes a
dialect to dialect now oftentimes people
will see these or hear these probably
not see them most people don’t write
them you would hear them and people
recognize them as local ways of speaking
but often they think they’re
ungrammatical bad English
oh that’s improper but this is what
makes the dialect distinct and again
it’s based on language contact Finnish
doesn’t have prepositions or articles
and the majority of people who settled
in the northwestern part of the Upper
Peninsula spoke Finnish and when those
languages came into contact Finnish and
English in particular those rules for
Finnish transferred on to English people
still understand what you mean if you
say I go Shopko or I went post office we
don’t really need those prepositions and
articles there’s nothing wrong about it
it’s just different it’s not
ungrammatical it’s not bad English
as with any dialect the unique sounds
words and grammatical structures are
what make a dialect to dialect and these
are some of the things that make you pee
English you per talk as we’ve seen
history social interaction resulting in
language contact are the key ingredients
that make up dialect to dialect we’ve
also seen that language attitudes are a
part of that and our attitudes about
dialects and perceptions about dialect
speakers and I should say that we all
have a dialect no matter what even your
high school English teacher had a
dialect so whatever our attitudes and
perceptions are we have to remember that
dialects are our badge of identity they
are who we are it rep
where we’re from our families our
communities our values our genders our
ages and if we remember that we can also
remember that for some people what it
means to be a yooper means to be proud
tough and independent especially from a
place that’s rooted in hard labor and it
has a climate that sometimes really hard
to live in with snow at least six months
out of the year so what makes a dialect
to dialect we do as we shape our history
as we interact with each other as we
sposta memes on social media about
dialects or dialect speakers as we have
conversations with friends and commute
co-workers and family members my hope is
that by understanding the history of the
dialect and understanding the distinct
features that make it and that all those
features aren’t necessarily distinct to
the yupi we can come appreciate a
dialect you bertok and what it means
thank you [Applause]
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